: a foliated metamorphic rock corresponding in composition to a feldspathic plutonic rock (such as granite)
Examples of gneiss in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The wine comes from vines that grow in the northern part of the Côte Blonde with a soil of gneiss and clay.
—
Forbes.com, 14 June 2025
But buried within this ancient gneiss is something even more valuable: zircon.
—Ella Jeffries, Smithsonian Magazine, 16 May 2025
Feldspar and mica, the main minerals in plutonic rocks like granite and metamorphic rocks like gneiss and schist, react with water and oxygen, decaying to clay minerals.
—David Bressan, Forbes, 31 Oct. 2024
The West Kootenay bouldering scene is arguably the fastest growing in Canada, with tons of high-quality gneiss and granite coupled with talented, motivated locals establishing new routes faster than anyone can document.
—Jayme Moye, Outside Online, 4 Oct. 2024
Fordham gneiss, one of the three main New York City rock types (Inwood marble and Manhattan schist are the others), had been the road builders’ big obstacle here.
—Ian Frazier, The New Yorker, 15 July 2024
Be sure to visit this Blue Ridge Parkway town and its namesake geological formation — an ancient gneiss outcrop whose rocky bulk causes the wind to blow vertically, making objects appear to float skyward.
—Anne Olivia Bauso, Travel + Leisure, 11 Apr. 2024
Back then, her great-great-great-uncle, the Viscount of Bom Retiro, expropriated private lands on behalf of the Brazilian state to reforest Rio’s peaks of granite and gneiss, which had been denuded by the growing coffee industry.
—Michael Snyder Pedro Kok, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2024
One billion years ago, following millennia of uplift and erosion, the gneiss breached the surface with its psychedelic ripples and baroque bands—the gray and pink of quartz, feldspar, and granite; the dark green and black of hornblende and biotite mica.
—Hugh Raffles, The New York Review of Books, 9 Oct. 2020
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Forbes.com, 14 June 2025
But buried within this ancient gneiss is something even more valuable: zircon.
—Ella Jeffries, Smithsonian Magazine, 16 May 2025
Feldspar and mica, the main minerals in plutonic rocks like granite and metamorphic rocks like gneiss and schist, react with water and oxygen, decaying to clay minerals.
—David Bressan, Forbes, 31 Oct. 2024
The West Kootenay bouldering scene is arguably the fastest growing in Canada, with tons of high-quality gneiss and granite coupled with talented, motivated locals establishing new routes faster than anyone can document.
—Jayme Moye, Outside Online, 4 Oct. 2024
Fordham gneiss, one of the three main New York City rock types (Inwood marble and Manhattan schist are the others), had been the road builders’ big obstacle here.
—Ian Frazier, The New Yorker, 15 July 2024
Be sure to visit this Blue Ridge Parkway town and its namesake geological formation — an ancient gneiss outcrop whose rocky bulk causes the wind to blow vertically, making objects appear to float skyward.
—Anne Olivia Bauso, Travel + Leisure, 11 Apr. 2024
Back then, her great-great-great-uncle, the Viscount of Bom Retiro, expropriated private lands on behalf of the Brazilian state to reforest Rio’s peaks of granite and gneiss, which had been denuded by the growing coffee industry.
—Michael Snyder Pedro Kok, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2024
One billion years ago, following millennia of uplift and erosion, the gneiss breached the surface with its psychedelic ripples and baroque bands—the gray and pink of quartz, feldspar, and granite; the dark green and black of hornblende and biotite mica.
—Hugh Raffles, The New York Review of Books, 9 Oct. 2020
Cite this Entry
“Gneiss.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gneiss. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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gneiss
noun
: a rock in layers that is similar in composition to granite
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